Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Capitalism is the social system based on the rights and freedom of the individual, including the right of private property for everyone as a matter of principle. Such a system of freedom necessarily requires that property by privately owned. Without private property rights there are no rights possible. Jenn and Travis are counting on that.

America was the first country to be based systematically on individual rights, which led to unprecedented improvement in the standard of living. Jenn and Travis are also counting on that for all the technology they are using and can return to it when they choose to abandon the impractical and inefficient uses they are experimenting with now. Without it they would be locked into the true poverty that used to be the norm for everyone.

The Constitution did not have to "mention capitalism". The term was not in common use then. The Constitution was devised to protect the rights of the individual by limiting the power of government, in contrast to the left's progressively accumulating government power at the expense of our rights. Individual freedom under the Constitution made our prosperity possible.

The government did not "give" land away 100 years ago; it allowed for the claiming of unowned land in an orderly manner. That was stopped at the beginning of the Progressive era when the unowned land in a large portion of the country, primarily the west, was put under permanent, socialist control of the government.

A system based on private property rights is in contrast to feudalism and the various forms of tribalism and collectivism, including viro eco-socialism. If the viros succeed in replacing private property rights with their park and wilderness Greenline land use prohibitions, what Jenn and Travis are doing will not be possible. Their experiment counts on their right to buy and own the land they wanted.

And this brings up the hypocrisy of the left in drooling over "homesteading" for politically correct minimalist living on previously undeveloped woods while denouncing the rest of us for "sprawl".

People have been owning land and living on it long before capitalism was ever "invented" as an economic system. Private property is a legal concept written in the laws in this country based on the US constitution and state laws which makes no mention of capitalism anywhere in the text. The idea of private property goes back to English law, the Magna Carta, etc etc.

Some people inherit land, some barter for it, some give it away to others, other were given free land by the US government a 100 years ago.

"There is no crime more infamous than the violation of truth. It is apparent that men can be social beings no longer than they believe each other. When speech is employed only as the vehicle of falsehood, every man must disunite himself from others, inhabit his own cave and seek prey only for himself." -- Dr. Samuel Johnson========Via Our Eternal Struggle

America's historian, David McCullough, recently revealed his thoughts on the current state of America's "esteemed institutions of higher learning" in an interview with the Wall Street Journal:

'We're raising young people who are, by and large, historically illiterate," David McCullough tells me on a recent afternoon in a quiet meeting room at the Boston Public Library. Having lectured at more than 100 colleges and universities over the past 25 years, he says, "I know how much these young people—even at the most esteemed institutions of higher learning—don't know." Slowly, he shakes his head in dismay. "It's shocking."

Senator Chuck Grassley today said that firearms data released last week by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) was a selective release of certain statistical data that inaccurately reflects the scope and source of the problem of firearms in Mexico and the drug trafficking organization violence.

Grassley’s letter to ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson cited additional statistical breakdowns and a Department of State cable that dispels myths about the source of weapons trafficked to Mexico. The unclassified cable includes sections such as: “Myth: An Iron Highway of Weapons Flows from the U.S.” and “Myth: The DTOs (Drug Trafficking Organizations) are Mostly Responsible.”

Grassley said when looking at a breakdown of the numbers, it’s clearly inaccurate to assert that 70 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico can be traced to a United States based gun dealer.

Grassley cited additional statistics in his letter to Melson. In the letter, Grassley said that by looking at more specific data provided to his office, it was clear that of the 26,813 weapons traced in 2009, only 5,800 actually traced back to Federal Firearms Licensees.

“The implication made by the ATF and various press reports is that the firearms come directly from U.S. manufacturers or U.S. Federal Firearms Licensees selling guns to drug trafficking organizations. Not only does this paint a grossly inaccurate picture of the situation, but it appears that the State Department disagrees with this portrayal,” Grassley said.

In his letter, Grassley provides a further break down of data of firearms tracing information, including a catchall category called “No Final Sale Dealer” in the ATF’s own eTrace system, which means the firearms did not trace back to a Federal Firearms Licensee. Astonishingly, nearly 78 percent of firearms traced in 2009 and 66 percent of firearms traced in 2010 were not traced to a United States licensed gun dealer. Grassley points out that these guns instead are likely sold to foreign countries or militaries requiring approval of the State Department and Homeland Security.

To make matters worse, this category includes firearms in the ATF’s Suspect Gun Database – a category which would include the nearly 2,000 firearms that are known to be part of the ATF’s ill-advised Fast and Furious strategy where the ATF knowingly authorized firearm sales to straw purchasers before the weapons were trafficked to Mexican drug trafficking organizations.

“The ATF needed a distraction before last week’s hearing. Unfortunately, nobody looked closely at the numbers to determine that this was a very selective release of information intended to distract people from the disastrous policy to let guns fall into the hands of straw purchasers, only to be often found on the other side of the border,” Grassley said.

Grassley has led the oversight efforts into the ATF’s reckless strategy to allow guns to fall into the hands of straw purchasers. He began his investigation in January and has yet to receive any substantive information from the Justice Department and the ATF. Grassley has been joined by Congressman Darrell Issa, the Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, to investigate Operation Fast and Furious.

I was thinking about the hundred heads promised for Mike Vanderbough. Though most of the eighty victims of Waco Massacre had surviving friends and family, and the event received wide publicity, I don’t know of a single case of revenge killing over it. Lon Horiuchi may be hiding too efficiently to be acquired, but plenty of other ATF and FBI personnel of all ranks have been implicated in the murders…yet they all, to the best of my knowledge, remain live and well except attrition by unrelated causes.

Should we conclude from this evidence that officials who order murder of civilians can enjoy safety from retribution?

Mr Zuma was out of the country for the first day of Mrs Obama's second solo trip abroad on Tuesday and although he returned on Monday night, aides said he was "not available" to meet her.

Instead, he arranged for Corrective Services Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula to greet her on her arrival in Pretoria on Monday night, and one of his three wives, Nompumelelo Ntuli-Zuma, to meet her briefly on Tuesday.

Mrs Obama, her daughters Sasha and Malia and her mother Marian Robinson, were also granted a rare audience with 92-year-old former president Nelson Mandela at his Johannesburg home.

It was Mrs Obama's first encounter with the global icon, although her husband Barack Obama met him when still a senator on a 2006 Africa tour. Mrs Obama's aides revealed that a mobile phone photograph taken of that meeting now hangs in Mr Mandela's office.

When Mrs Obama made her first solo trip, to Mexico, she was guest of honour at a state dinner hosted by President Calderón and his wife.

It's about the same size/weight as my LX5, but without the lens, so too big for a pocket camera and will stick with my LX5.

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Wouldn’t it be great if you could have a digital camera with interchangeable lenses that takes pictures as good as those captured by a DSLR, but also something no bigger than a point and shoot? The simple answer is that it would be great—and the fact is that you can purchase such a camera.

Panasonic’s Lumix DMC-GF3 does it all in a package that’s no bigger than many point and shoots.

Panasonic says that the DMC-GF3 is its smallest, lightest digital camera ever, with interchangeable lenses and a built-in flash. It has to be. The GF3 is a new Micro Four Thirds camera body that weighs less than 8 ounces—about half the weight of a compact DSLR—and measures only 4.24 inches high by 2.64 inches wide by 1.28 inches thick. It contains a 12.1 megapixel image sensor and three inch, touch-screen display. In fact, Panasonic says that the GF3 is roughly 17% smaller and 16% lighter than its predecessor, the Lumix GF2.

The late South African economist William Hutt, in his 1964 book, The Economics of the Colour Bar, said that one of the supreme tragedies of the human condition is that those who have been the victims of injustices and oppression "can often be observed to be inflicting not dissimilar injustices upon other races."

Born in 1936, I've lived through some of our openly racist history, which has included racist insults, beatings and lynchings. Tuskegee Institute records show that between the years 1880 and 1951, 3,437 blacks and 1,293 whites were lynched. I recall my cousin's and my being chased out of Fishtown and Grays Ferry, two predominantly Irish Philadelphia neighborhoods, in the 1940s, not stopping until we reached a predominantly black North or South Philly neighborhood.

Unfortunately today was an exceptionally busy day at work and equally hectic afterward with our sons getting cabin fever from being stuck in a hotel for almost two months now. While I did the best I could I just wasn’t able to get the news feed caught up by the time I was able to sit down and scan the news reports.

A federal judge ruled Monday that publishing an entire article without the rights holder’s authorization was a fair use of the work, in yet another blow to newspaper copyright troll Righthaven.

It’s not often that republishing an entire work without permission is deemed fair use. Fair use is an infringement defense when the defendant reproduced a copyrighted work for purposes such as criticism, commentary, teaching and research. The defense is analyzed on a case-by-case basis.

"Rifles are inanimate objects that have no will of their own. As such, they may be used by evil men for evil purposes. While an evil man may not be persuaded by propaganda, he may certainly be corrected by good men with rifles."-- Col. Jeff Cooper===================

Got myself into an interesting conversation in a restaurant at breakfast this morning. This fellow was telling me all about the additives in unleaded gasoline, the substitutes for lead, that boost the octane level, that after being burned are emitted as benzene and are destroying the environment. And (somehow) the conversation came around to the subject of eminent domain, where he *suggested* that Abraham Lincoln used the power of the presidency to prevent the cutting of redwood trees and *saved* the redwoods, and created the National Park System in the process.

Now this statement bothered me on several levels. But I asked- – - “where did the president get the authority to prevent the cutting of trees on private property”? to which he replied that *they* have the power; yeah, *they* have the power to blah, blah, blah and so on. And he proceeded to tell me about how the local grub’mint used the power of eminent domain to *take* land away from people to build a hotel. So, because this *taking* had occurred, in his mind the grub’mint (local and state and federal) has the authority to steal land.

So I say that you have described an example of an eminent domain taking, but WHERE did Lincoln (if it WAS Lincoln) get the authority to use eminent domain and he says I will show you and he pulls out a well worn copy of the United States Constitution and starts thumbing through it. All red lined and highlighted and I suggest that he ain’t a going to find it in there, and I am late getting to work but I will look in my well worn copy of the constitution and look once more, and will see him tomorrow at breakfast and continue our conversation.

So all this conversation got me to thinking that the *Ruling Class* does not have this authority, but they exert it anyway, all the time, and the reason is that people like my buddy here just accept that since *they* did it once, that it must be right.

I call BULLSHIT! Resist. Question boldly. Article I Section 8 describes ALL the authority congress has to maneuver with. Article II describes what authority the president has. I have yet to re-read it again, but (check this out yourself) I will bet you right now that there is no authority granted for the president to *protect* redwood trees, or spotted owls or billions of other things that presidents have done since the time of Lincoln. So, tomorrow we will revisit this non-authority, and grow awareness that the Ruling Class has been, and IS ripping us off.

We must grow the resistance. At every opportunity, we must learn what is allowed, and question what is being done. And raise public awareness so that the line of acceptability gets redrawn. Resist, at every opportunity. Resist, and question boldly. Resist.

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Southern Lady

Core Creek Militia

==============================My sixth great grandfather, his wife, and five of his six children were killed in battle with the Tuscarora Indians at Core Creek, NC.

The Seven Blackbirds

==============================My third great grandfather was an Ensign in the Revolutionary War, and saved his unit's flag after being wounded at the Battle of Brandywine. He was also at Kingston (Kinston), Wilmington, Charleston, Two Sisters and Augusta. He was at the defeat at Brier Creek and also Bee Creek.

Requiem Aeternam -
Eternal Rest Grant unto Them
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My second great grandfather was killed in action on May 3, 1863 at the Battle of Chancellorsville.
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My great grandfather and great uncle knew all the men in the "Civil War Requiem" video as they were part of the 53rd NC which was the sole unit defending Fort Mahone. (Fort Mahone was named "Fort Damnation" by the Yankees) *Handpicked men of the 53rd (My great grandfather was one of these) made the final, night assault at Petersburg in an attempt to break Grant's line. This was against Fort Stedman which was a few miles to the slight northeast. They initially succeeded, but reinforcements drove them back. This video is made from photographs which were taken the day after the 53rd evacuated the lines the night before to begin the retreat to Appomattox. I have many more pictures taken by the same photographer, one of these shows a 14 year old boy and the other is the famous picture of the blond, handsome soldier with his musket.
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*General Gordon promised the men a gold medal and 30 days leave if they accomplished their task and many years after the War my great grandfather wrote General Gordon, who was then governor of Georgia about this incident. They exchanged several letters which I have framed. See first link below.
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*The Attack On Fort Stedman
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"His Colored Friends"
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Lee's Surrender
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My Black NC Kinfolks
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Punished For Being Caught!

Great Grandfather Koonce

He was a drummer boy in the WBTS, survived the War only to die a few years later. He was caught in an ice storm on his way home, but instead of seeking shelter, continued on his horse until the end. His clothes had to be cut off and he died a few days later.

Thank you

I would just like you to know how so very glad I am that I found your blog. I have learned more history from you and the many links that you post than I have from reading all my history books. I can never thank you enough for the education you are freely giving me. It is priceless. And eye opening.

Many times I will not comment, but that does not mean I am not reading and learning.

You sir, are an educator. Thank you.

PhyllisWantage, NJ

Good morning Mr. Townsend,

Just to let you know I have finally finished that massive tome on General Lee. I never knew 1/10th of what a great man he was. No wonder the South is so proud of him! So sad that we have few men of his caliber today. We need them desperately. I have learned more history through you and your blog than I thought I could ever learn. I am very grateful to you. Thank you so much for taking time to answer my e-mail. And thank you for your blog and for opening my eyes.

PhyllisWantage, NJ

".......So good to hear from you! And also so pleased you are converting more of us Yankees! You have no idea how many people you have taught. And how many are so grateful to you for showing us the truth."

Your faithful friend,

Phylis

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I have also learned from Brock Townsend and two nurses lately, that appreciation expressed by someone for whom you have great respect overwhelms the lack of appreciation by some from whom you expect it. I believe that we cannot really know which small bit of help makes the life-saving difference. ﻿

I have learned more history from you than all the years I was supposed to be in school (and not out hunting or fishing).

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I really must say, I like thousands of others have said, your blog is the best out there and with all of your history and experience, you should run for *president. I look forward to reading your blog every day and every day I learn from you. Thank you for the time you put into this effort .

Sincerely,

Scott Fitts

*It would have to be an improvement. :) BT

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Hi Brock,

Ever since I picked up on your blog I "Knew" you were a "Gentleman of the South!" You lack the "Crassness" that is so prevalent in today's Sociopolitical arena but speak with the Firmness in Truth and Conviction of Right like the words of our Late Great President Jefferson Davis! That is Honorable.

I have been thinking about this for a while now. At first it was a very subtle notice, then it became larger as I saw more. Then it bloomed to me to be what it is. In your writings, in your Blog, Brock, "You" have written, posted and done more to eradicate the "Revisionist History" forced on us by the "Northern Aggressors,"BAR NONE!!!" The "Stars and Bars" fly High and Proud today even more thanks to your efforts!

Reading your post on 03 JUNE about the birthday of President Jefferson Davis and the "quotes" of his was the galvanizing statement! The first words of "His" you posted say so much, are timeless and can never be "Destroyed!" by any man! .......and those words were........

"Truth crushed to the earth is still truth still and like a seed will rise again."--Jefferson Davis (1808-1889)

In so many ways you and your efforts to keep and carry on the "Truth of the South" are the water and light of the Sun that nourish "That Seed" that Jefferson Davis speaks of! That "Seed" of "Southern Truth!" That cannot be vanquished because of efforts like Men as yourself!

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http://refzip.com/

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